Express lane to finals The Coquitlam Express will take on the Vernon Vipers this weekend in the BCHL’s Fred Page Cup finals. The series kicks off at Kal Tire Place in Vernon on Saturday and Sunday, and Coquitlam hockey fans will get the chance to welcome their team home on Monday and Tuesday at the Poirier Sport and Leisure Complex, where the puck will drop at 7 p.m. See Sports on page 35
THE FRIDAY
APRIL 11, 2014
CANADIAN COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER AWARD 2012
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TRI-CITY NEWS CANADIAN COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER AWARD 2012
Burquitlam is changing
Arts, music and more
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SEE THINGS-TO-DO GUIDE, PAGE 18
INSIDE
Letters/11 Elaine Golds/25 The Golden Years/26 Community Calendar/34
SD43 needs more land on Burke By Diane Strandberg THE TRI-CITY NEWS
DIANE STRANDBERG/THE TRI-CITY NEWS
Dr. Loyd Mah, of Westwood Eye Doctors in Coquitlam, and his optometric assistant Tara Wycherley with eye testing equipment. Several eye doctors belonging to the BC Association of Optometrists will provide free eye tests, and glasses if problems are detected, to kindergarten students in School District 43. The Eye See Eye Learn initiative is a pilot in the province and is modelled on a similar program in Alberta.
Eye docs see to K kids’ vision health Free eye exams and glasses, too By Diane Strandberg THE TRI-CITY NEWS
Parents of kindergarten children in School District 43 should pay
close attention to a letter that should have come in their kid’s backpacks this week alerting them to an important program that could save their child’s vision. The letter, from SD43 and local eye doctors, offers free vision care test-
ing and, if problems are detected, free glasses, from participating eye doctors. (The list is on the back of the letter). The offer, called the Eye See Eye Learn program, is good until Aug. 31 for this year’s crop of kindergarten
students and parents shouldn’t miss out on the opportunity in case their children are experiencing eye problems they haven’t complained about. Dr. Lloyd Mah, a BC Association of Optometrists (BCOA)
director who is heading the program, said conditions such as farsightedness may make a child’s close-up vision blurry but not all will receive a referral when their eyes are screened at school. see PROGRAM, page 14
School District 43 didn’t get all the property it needed in a land deal between Wesbild and the provincial government to build an elementary and middle school on Burke Mountain, it was revealed this week. Wesbild’s land purchase was announced with much fanfare in March, with the company and CoquitlamBurke Mountain MLA Doug Horne noting the district would be able to buy back land needed for schools in the future at 2014 prices. But only two thirds of the property required to build the schools has been set aside for SD43 to purchase at current prices — four acres for an elementary school
SCHOOL $$ Groups make funding pleas See page 4 and six for a middle school. The district still needs two more acres for the elementary school and three more for the middle school, trustees were told at a board of education meeting Tuesday. That raised the ire of Port Moody Trustee Keith Watkins, who said the province should have simply set aside the entire portion for the district’s use instead of selling it and requiring the district to buy it back later. see COSTS, page 6
‘Hallway medicine’? By Diane Strandberg THE TRI-CITY NEWS
Hallway medicine has come to Eagle Ridge Hospital, according to a letter calling for a $20-million expansion and more operating funding for the Port Moody hospital to provide more beds and reduce inefficiencies that cost Fraser Health more money. see EXPANSION CHEAPER, page 7